QCP #022 | Stephanie Crawford, Death Doula | Death is Not Taboo

GUEST BIO

Our next guest, Stephanie Crawford, is a hospice care nurse and Death Doula. She recently founded Awakened Endings - an end of life service and community dedicated to helping others understand and prepare for a better death.

In this conversation, you’ll hear both a heavy and light-hearted approach to talking about the transition of death. You’ll learn about what a death cafe is, what a “green” burial is, what some commonalities she has witnessed observing people weeks away from their last breath, and much more. It’s an educational tool for those learning how to approach caring for a dying loved one. In piecing this episode together, I noticed that much of what is said during this conversation can also be a metaphor for having meaningful relationships with someone still alive and healthy. Why wait until someone is dying to listen and finally get to know who they really are?

You’ll also hear firsthand what kind of person is willing to take on this role of helping bring death back into our culture - not as a traumatic, avoidable topic of discussion - but a reverent, growth transitioning, healing rite of passage. 

 

Reach out to Stephanie Crawford, Death Doula:
Serving in-person clients in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Serving virtual clients worldwide.

 

• Awakened Endings - Website
• For a FREE 45-minute consultation and all other inquiries, contact stephanie@awakenedendings.com

 

 

Show Notes

Segment 1

• Death/ Nihilism
• Type of nursing work - Trauma
• Why is it hard to talk about death?
• Terror Management Theory
• Mortality and getting older
• How death can be normalized
• Acceptance and death
• How to care for a dying/ suffering patient
• Going through a divorce during the pandemic
  • Practices in place to cope with suffering

Segment 2

• Living in the mind
• Divorce and Death
  • Finding meaning through suffering
• Grief as a teacher
• Views on the healthcare  system
  • Surgeries leading to worse state for elderly
• Discharging from hospice care/ education about hospice care
• Terri Schiavo Case
• Die Wise, Stephen Jenkinson
• Pain Management/ How to manage patient suffering
• The power of conversation, vulnerability and opening up (snippet)
• Dark Sense of Humor/ Survival Tactics
  • Light hearted moments working in hospice care

Segment 3

• Being around family and loved ones, how to talk with loved ones about mortality
• Educating people about the death process while still of sound mind and body
  • Early Advanced Directives
  • Assisted Death
• Catholic Death Rituals
• Different types of options for Burial
• Rituals for Death practices to help make sense of death transition (snippet)
• Coco
  • The Day of the Dead
• The Death Cafe
• Desert Solitude, Edward Abbey
• Human Composting
• Psychedelics and Death
• Don't be so focused on the outcome, constant state of change
• Eye Contact with someone dying, what's that like?
• Death Connects us with our humanity
• Drawing boundaries for yourself
• Common themes witnessing people die
  • Visioning academic paper

Segment IV

• what have you learned about people?
• Work as a death doula,
  • the process
• what is a death cafe?
  
  • The Death Deck Game
• How to approach someone talking about death
• How to hold light and dark in a playful space (credit to Wisdom Sun Meditation Practice)
• How to build resilience